Look at the card, if you haven't already.

Way way back in the past, when the Tantive IV was released, the original C-3P0 was a hot item card that appeared in virtually every competitive rebel list running a "Fat Han" build (An overloaded YT-1300 with Han as the pilot). My question for you all is, now that you see Palpatine, is he an essential commander? Is this a card that you Must have, as much as Rieekan for your fleet, or Motti?

It may be hard to say without putting him on the table for some eyeball verified results, I'll grant. But there are also plenty of armchair theorists out here, and some who'll proxy and put this card into play sooner than anticipated!

I think Imperial players are going to get by just fine without Palpatine in their tournament lists. I think he'll be a go-to commander if there's a certain predominant meta strategy that's dependent upon one ship or another... but right now, I don't think that's the case. Raddus bombs are as good as the spotter ships are going to be... so early turn, Palpatine selects evades (that's fine, CR-90s have two) or scatters. But defense token selection is not going to stop the MC75 from warping out into lethal close range of a target... and things like the Brace on the 75 are already in danger from normal shots anyway. Besides, Rebels have a lot of tools to circumvent Palpatine's bluster (Lando on your prized ship, Wallex to undo the damage Palpatine has done).

Against B-Wing swarmed backed with Yavaris... a ship's going to get perhaps one shot at the Yavaris on the turn it can knock out the Brace tokens but... funny thing about redundancy. Plus, a savvy Rebel player will try to limit the amount of times Yavaris is shot at so the Palpatine player has to think hard on when to use the brace token stopper. As for fighters... It's either Brace or Scatter, and most of the aces take two Braces. An ace will have to defend twice in order for both brace tokens to go, and Jan has a couple spares for other aces. In the end, Sloane might be the better ace to take because with her you can choose which tokens to exhaust with the brace token... and that token cannot be utilized by the defender even as they are discarding it. Moreover, Sloane is cheaper, even if she just needs a lot of non-rogue fighters to play with.

Realistically I'd see Palpatine come in with big battery boats that have enough fighters to tie down fighters long enough for the big battery boats to land some hits while threatening brace and redirects. You can't go wrong on the turn selecting Brace, since you're either getting a turn forcing it to not be used, or you're forcing your opponent to make it go away forever with your officer slots free of a one-time-use intelligence officer.

That's my take. What do you guys think? Is he essential enough for every Imperial player to land $200 for a ship they may not want otherwise?

He's strong but Intel Officer has a similar effect. In the same way Darth Vader is strong as a commander but is replaceable with cards like Leading Shots.

I personally think he is going to get dusty, I feel his ability is not flexible enough to make a consistent impact worth 35 points.

I think the cheaper admirals will push him out of most competitive play.

Excited for Piett though

Has there ever been an essential commander in this game since the core set, really? I’ve never heard anyone say “I must take Rieekan, or I lose.” Same with Motti. Unless you believe the only viable Imperial list will be one built around Palpatine, he’s not essential. People will be bothered when they want to run him in a tournament and didn’t buy the SSD, but that’s not the same thing.

I have hard times figuring out how to really exploit him and the easiest thing is squadron's scatter cause it is not hard to threat several tokens of that tipe during the same round.

Evade maybe too but several ship with that tokens have it twice.

Redirect has enough pressure already with xi7.

On the other hand it works the entire round so it is not like the defender could save it for the next shot the same round. And another advantage is it works for every attack from the same same ship so the best use would be for ships able to threat several targets (GT vic and isd) and/or focusing on the same target (which will be more meaningful with smaller pools I think)

These are my thoughts at the moment.

He's only one token per round, and the same token only once per game.

He looks useful, but he's expensive and there is a lot of stuff your opponent can do to limit his impact.

apologies if info is elsewhere and I overlooked it, but has Piett been deciphered by our tech experts? thx!

10 minutes ago, NebulonB said:

apologies if info is elsewhere and I overlooked it, but has Piett been deciphered by our tech experts? thx!

Only partially, basically he does something when a ship spends a command token, possibly give extra dial?

16 minutes ago, NebulonB said:

apologies if info is elsewhere and I overlooked it, but has Piett been deciphered by our tech experts? thx!

Maybe exhaust to make a token into a dial.

If he's good enough that he counters some popular meta build, then you're protected just by virtue of other people fielding him.

Anyways I'm gonna laugh super hard if Palpatine makes Imperials start having to field TIE Advanced aces, although that seems unlikely.

It's kind of hard to say. When Raddus was first announced, I thought his ability would be too difficult to use / easy to get around, but once I played against Raddus lists I realized he's better than he looks on paper.

I like Palpatine's ability on paper, partly because I really like quick offensive play, but currently I think Vader has a much better ability for only one point more. I'm glad that they made Palpatine's ability apply really broadly, but within limitations (it would be too good if you could target braces more than one round per game).

I probably wouldn't try him with triple Cymoons unless I expect to highroll all the way, which I don't.

6 hours ago, Shadow345 said:

He's strong but Intel Officer has a similar effect. In the same way Darth Vader is strong as a commander but is replaceable with cards like Leading Shots.

Keep in mind that Intel officer can't deal with double tokens (double brace for example). Palpatine can.

Palapatine is not essential to me...but the SSD is. And since they come together, well...?

2 hours ago, Bertie Wooster said:

It's kind of hard to say. When Raddus was first announced, I thought his ability would be too difficult to use / easy to get around, but once I played against Raddus lists I realized he's better than he looks on paper.

I like Palpatine's ability on paper, partly because I really like quick offensive play, but currently I think Vader has a much better ability for only one point more. I'm glad that they made Palpatine's ability apply really broadly, but within limitations (it would be too good if you could target braces more than one round per game).

I probably wouldn't try him with triple Cymoons unless I expect to highroll all the way, which I don't.

That's fun. I knew Raddus was going to perform really well. Cheap and game breaking ability. Even being just one shot.

I think palapatine will be a good and viable commander. I am looking forward to trying him eventually. I think the ability to shut down options is a dangerous ability. Combine with accuracies you can lock people into using the thing that you chose.

7 hours ago, clontroper5 said:

I personally think he is going to get dusty, I feel his ability is not flexible enough to make a consistent impact worth 35 points.

I think the cheaper admirals will push him out of most competitive play.

Excited for Piett though

Has Admiral Piett's ability been revealed? I kinda hope he is a front arc amplifier like Ackbar is for broadsides, his most famous line supports that idea.

I'm more worried about the officers in the SSD expansion. There are enough good commanders. If all were Tagge level and then a good one comes around for 200$ sure, that would suck.

I hope the officers are all damage-control-girl-level. Nice to have, not toryn far good.

On 8/4/2018 at 3:49 AM, clontroper5 said:

I personally think he is going to get dusty, I feel his ability is not flexible enough to make a consistent impact worth 35 points.

I think the cheaper admirals will push him out of most competitive play.

This. I'm worried Palpatine will become unused. After some quick processing with him as Commander I'm not convinced he is any good at all. He doesn't prevent token use and in most games there aren't a lot of big damage attacks, so your opponent with either simply use the chosen Palpatine token to avoid taking monster damage (Brace or Scatter) or just wait to use that token next turn, assuming more attacks are incoming.

I think he's best with lots of attacks that also pack Intel Officer. But right now, I don't think he's nearly as good as our current Empire Commander staples.

On 8/4/2018 at 3:15 AM, The Jabbawookie said:

People will be bothered when they want to run him in a tournament and didn’t buy the SSD, but that’s not the same thing.

That's exactly my problem (well, my biggest problem) with the SSD expansion though. I can already think of lists where I *want* to run Palpatine, but I don't want to buy the SSD. Putting unique commanders and officers behind a $200 pay wall is a **** move. I thought was much about C-3PO in X-Wing, and that was only a $100 wall...

25 minutes ago, IronNerd said:

That's exactly my problem (well, my biggest problem) with the SSD expansion though. I can already think of lists where I *want* to run Palpatine, but I don't want to buy the SSD. Putting unique commanders and officers behind a $200 pay wall is a **** move. I thought was much about C-3PO in X-Wing, and that was only a $100 wall...

Proxy him for casual play, or borrow from a friend for tourneys. If you absolutely love him, I’m willing to bet he’ll be on eBay for more than he should be, but less than the SSD. You could make a fair argument it’s a **** move to release $200 dollar expansions at all. But every expansion is gonna come with new unique cards. I’m just glad the only new cards are unique. Imagine generic upgrades. *shudder*

On 8/4/2018 at 1:15 AM, The Jabbawookie said:

Has there ever been an essential commander in this game since the core set, really? I’ve never heard anyone say “I must take Rieekan, or I lose.” Same with Motti. Unless you believe the only viable Imperial list will be one built around Palpatine, he’s not essential. People will be bothered when they want to run him in a tournament and didn’t buy the SSD, but that’s not the same thing.

I have heard many people say that. I personally swear by Dodonna but I have a bias.

Palpy will be OK for fun games but right now, it's a scare tactic not really something that makes me salivate

I think he will be situational. In some cases he will be a decisive factor like in heavy squadron vs squadron games or when the opponent has two or three ships that rely heavily on their brace. Funnily I think he will be less useful against MSU list, especially against CR90s and Mc30. Or possibly against any fleet that has many redundant tokens.

All Palps needs is someone willing to champion him and find a way to make him work. If @CaribbeanNinja or @BrobaFett or @Truthiness were any good..... Well, they might solve the Rebel World's problem and ignore my attempts at reverse psychology to trick them into playing him.

Leia Gauntlet 2019, yo.

I like him and think he'll be really good. What you always want to be doing is forcing your opponent to make difficult decisions. As a rebel player who might be matching up against a Palpatine fleet, I think it would force difficult decisions about when and where I engaged. Tokens are precious, and one of the surest ways to destroy ships is to overwhelm their defense tokens.

The issue is that you have to force those difficult decisions. Coming from my experience with DtO and the entire list about forcing decisions on my opponent this is not a great tactic. Actually... Hmmmmm

He would be amazing in a MSU list... @geek19 if you tried Palpy in a Glad list with Kitten backup you may actually find an interesting set of results. Forcing his token decision turn after turn can be a decisive factor... Hmmmm